I was reading CNN.com today and saw an article about how they re-arrested three men in the disappearance/murder of Natalee Holloway. For those of you living under rocks, Natalee is the chick from Alabama who has been missing since 2005 when she and her classmates took a class trip to Aruba. I was reading some of the comments about the case and the opinions people had and I was baffled by the one the read something to the effect of "It was a gang-rape that went wrong and something bad happened" or something similar. WHAT? Wouldn't the rape itself be what was wrong in the first place? Use some common sense here people.
Aside from that irritating comment, I am completely uninterested in this case. It might sound cold, but tell me please why whenever a young woman is missing, there are only ridiculous amounts of coverage on the story if she is white? It's a shame. There are also several comments about this exact topic in the comment thread and that pissed people off, saying it wasn't about race. Like hell it's not. I myself am white, yet intelligent enough to see in the media this bias towards reporting on only upper middle class white girls. The bias may not be intentional, but it's there. She's been missing for two years, and still there is coverage on it. I'm not saying we shouldn't care what happened to this young woman, but we should care about what happened to the hundreds of thousands of missing young men and woman, regardless of race.
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2 comments:
Don't forget they need to be white AND pretty. I isn't cold to recognize that. It's awful to think what happened to that poor girl but the way we give the story air time is kind of sick.
It perpetuates the idea that only pretty, white girls are victimized. And the sexual violence is almost-- dare I say -- enjoyed by some people. Like the gang rape comment-- beyond gross.
I was pretty irritated by the whole thing. There are so many things wrong with this whole case, where were the chaperones, why did she go off alone with three people she didn't know well, why didn't anyone think to check on her. I think a lot of people, including Natalee herself, are to blame, which I know sounds bad blaming a victim but common sense in keeping yourself safe would probably be to NOT just wander off away from people you know and trust. But whatever, I think however I phrase this I am going to come off as victim blaming which is not what I am trying to do at all. I just think this could have easily been prevented.
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